


Sleep Without Dreams

by Lady_Otori



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Hurt/Comfort, Napping, Other, Please Hug The WoL, Post-Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Sharing a Bed, Tumblr Prompt, Warrior of Light Needs A Rest, Weary Warrior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-20 01:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20219848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lady_Otori/pseuds/Lady_Otori
Summary: Wounds of the heart, healed through the touch of a friend.[“I just need…” you pause, aware of the way his eyes are tracing the contours of your face, so close you are together, “I need a friend.”He still looks unsure, your heart squeezing as you recall the rare honour he’d bestowed on you, back in the days of your final explorations of Allagan secrets. Of permission to use his name, free from titles, free from clans. It was not given lightly, you remember.“Please, Raha.”It’s as though you’ve spoken a spell: he nods, slowly, and without further protest draws back and pulls the red-and-black of his robes over his head.]





	Sleep Without Dreams

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a lovely prompt I received over on tumblr, amidst all my NSFW requests 😅:
> 
> "Can I get a prompt for the WOL/D just wanting to fall asleep next to the Exarch? Just sleep, the saviour of the world needs a decent uninterrupted nap."
> 
> So here we have it! I just... I just really like the idea of them napping together. And the idea of the Warrior being emotionally hurt and needing comfort.

You must look like something from the stories of the damned by the time you stumble towards Tessellation. Lyna’s face loses all its stoic calm when you appear from the darkness, bathed in so much blood that your armour is stained in grim parody of Estinien. You try to speak, but the words come out a croak. 

“Warrior!” she cries, and half the guardsmen abandon their posts in their rush to prop you up. But when they get closer, they flinch away; you are a nightmare in crimson, eyes white and wild in a face painted with gore not your own. Even as the vii’s hand rises to the linkpearl she wears, no doubt to call for help, you gesture in dismissal. 

“I’m- fine-” you gasp. “Just need… my bed.” 

It’s the last thing you manage. One attempt at bravado before you pitch forward onto your face so fast that nobody sees it coming. 

You drift in and out of consciousness for a time -  _ when was the last time you truly slept? -  _ and when you wake up, it’s to the sting of rubbing alcohol as the Crystal Exarch wipes it across your cheek. For a blessed moment the world is only him and his gentle tending of your wounds. But G’raha’s agitation is writ clear on his uncovered face, ears bent as far back as they can go and his full lips pressed together in half worry, half disapproval. When he sees you’ve regained consciousness, the miqo’te leans back on his heels, arms balanced on his knees. 

“My friend,” he says, voice far more even than his countenance, “I daresay you’ve begun some new tales about yourself tonight.” 

You contemplate closing your eyes again, but his crystal hand lands on your uninjured cheek and the coolness of it prompts you to meet his gaze. It makes you sigh, but more importantly, it makes you lean into the touch, unconscious in your quest for contact non-fatal. 

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, wincing as his other hand restarts its ministrations, “I think I may have overestimated what I could do while tired.” 

The soft  _ tch  _ he lets slip makes you start to smile, but it hurts and you frown instead. 

“From what Lyna’s frazzled linkpearl call told me, you defeated a rare and notorious monster and all her brood too,” he tilts your head to the side as he talks, finger sweeping experimentally across your skin. “I daresay you are underestimating yourself,  _ hero _ .” 

It’s a marvel how he manages to imbue that solitary word with both wonder and warning. But he does, and it is nice to hear how someone cares, even though you’re barely alert to appreciate it. You’re content to let G’raha keep working for a time, until he leaves your face alone and starts to unbuckle the straps of your armour. 

“Leave it,” you say, weary, “I’m not that badly wounded, I just need to sleep.” 

The Exarch does not quite believe you: you can read it in the twitch of his tail as he lets you stand up unaided. You don’t recognise the chambers you are in, except that they’re in the Crystal Tower, and this you know only for the soft hum of the Syrcus magic as it sleeps. The place has nothing of the lofty grandeur found in the chambers you’ve already explored; it is small in proportions, enrobed with thick tapestries and carpets and curios, and piled high with furs. 

“Where am I?” you wonder, and G’raha’s russet ears bounce up and down at your question. 

“I read here sometimes,” he supplies. It seems true: the room is as full of tomes as his study had been in Mor Dhona. When you move to pick up a book he reaches out to halt your movement, sheepish though sturdy in his grasp. 

“You’re still bleeding,” he explains, apologetic. “And some of these books are very, very old.” 

“Ah.” 

You understand: a scholar once and forever, sullying your friend’s treasures is the last thing you want, though you do not know what you  _ do  _ want except for the sweet embrace of sleep. You hold out your hands obediently as he wipes them with a damp cloth, rinsing away the traces of a fight you’d rather not have fought.

“Is there somewhere near where I could rest? I’m fair exhausted and I don’t feel up to explaining…” - you gesture tiredly down your grim front - “...to half a worried Crystarium about this. Or maybe you could send me back to the Source…?”

The Exarch is shaking his head before you’re finished speaking. “You’ll go nowhere,” he says firmly, “and certainly not across shards in a weakened condition. You can sleep here.” 

“Are you sure?” you can’t help but ask, conscious enough to feel the intrusion your presence must be causing. 

You shuffle, awkward. On second inspection, the room looks like a comfortable den: a place where a mysterious leader, worn down with the cares of rulership, might come to rest amongst soft hides and favourite furnishings. It is G’raha Tia’s private space, you think, and here you are bleeding and blundering in the midst of it. 

“I’m  _ very _ sure,” he murmurs, standing closer. At his words you do not resist the disrobing of your ruined armour, wincing only as he catches the graze you hadn’t felt take on your arm. “And let me heal you some, if you please.” 

You shake your head. “Only enough that I don’t bleed over your bed,” you say staunchly. “I’ll heal my wounds tomorrow… tonight I just need to heal my heart.” 

G’raha blinks, confused. His red Allagan gaze follows you as you remove the final pieces of armour, shrugging out of your ruined undershirt until you’re wearing little more than your smallclothes. Unselfconscious in exhaustion, you cast around for something to wear, grateful for the clean cotton shirt your companion passes you with wordless speculation. 

“What do you mean?” he asks at length. 

You favour him with a rueful smile, holding your sore arm out as you shimmy into the fresh cloth. The Exarch takes hold of it faster than you can withdraw, pulling on the Tower’s strength to seal the cut with little more than a whisper of a word. You raise an eyebrow at him before answering.

“Well, I suspect you know that I don’t relish the fight, not always.” 

He nods, bent over your skin and thus missing the twist of pain in your expression. 

“So notorious or not, I don’t much enjoy the slaughtering of half-formed hatchlings.” 

“Hmm…” G’raha muses, and the young scholar you knew looks out of his tireless gaze, a philosophical quip ready on his tongue. But what the young historian is quick to talk about the wise old academic has lived through, and he holds his counsel, instead focusing on wiping your arm clean as you pass a tired hand over your eyes. 

“Ah, I didn’t mean to go dark on you there, G’raha,” you apologise, watching as his ears twitch at mention of his name. “It’s just… I am so very tired.” 

He looks sympathetic at that, steering you towards the biggest pile of furs in the corner of the room, which now reveal themselves to be a bed, wrought in the Ilsabardian style. 

“You don’t have to apologise to me,” he says softly, and your name falls sweetly from his lips as he directs you under the covers, “you know I will rarely admonish you, and never for the truth.” 

It’s a nice thought. Too many people of this world and the Source absolve you of nothing or of everything, and you know his opinion to be steadfast and wise. Securely tucked in, you watch as G’raha rises to leave, and before you’re fully aware of it your hand snakes out to catch his robes. He tilts awkwardly at the touch, crystal hand falling on the opposite side of your head as he steadies himself. 

He blushes deeply, leaning over you with lips parted in mild shock. 

“Oh-” he starts, at the same time as you say, 

“Please don’t go anywhere.” 

Silence, except for the background murmuring of the Tower. You think he might refuse, if only to restore order to his flushed face. And it is for this reason that your other hand joins the first, grasping onto his transfigured hand as though to hold him in place. 

“I just need…” you pause, aware of the way his eyes are tracing the contours of your face, so close you are together, “I need a friend.”

He still looks unsure, your heart squeezing as you recall the rare honour he’d bestowed on you, back in the days of your final explorations of Allagan secrets. Of permission to use his name, free from titles, free from clans. It was not given lightly, you remember.

“Please, Raha.” 

It’s as though you’ve spoken a spell: he nods, slowly, and without further protest draws back and pulls the red-and-black of his robes over his head. With a flick of his wrist the lights in the chamber fade. Clad only in his white under-robe, the Exarch moves to sit next to where you lie, his ears twitching when you don’t move to give him more space. For a moment you stare at one another, the colour on his cheeks pronounced in the dim light left from a solitary lamp on the desk. 

You don’t like to push him. But it’s the warmth of a friend you need tonight - only that - and so you implore him silently with a tug on his sleeve until he heaves a not-unwilling sigh and climbs into bed next to you. 

G’raha blinks a few times to readjust his vision. “This reminds me of-”

“A miserably cold tent in Mor Dhona,” you finish, recalling the same memory. It had been an ill-advised excursion to the farther shore of Silvertear, Rammbroes pressing a tent on you before you’d run to keep up with G’raha’s exuberant pace. The day had ended with sleeping nose-to-nose and knee-against-knee in a tent barely big enough for one of you.

It is one of your most treasured images of him: talking until the small hours of Allagan tales and the stories you’d both heard growing up. 

“Though I confess I never thought I’d repeat the experience,” you murmur, wistful, and because you’re lying so close you feel the rumble in the Exarch’s chest as he voices his agreement. “You must know much more of the secrets of Allag now. Tell me something?”

“What would you like to know?”

You consider it. People often talked of their greed, their overarching zealousness for progress above all else, how in the end they mirrored the forces they had wanted to eradicate. Those stories are not something you want to hear more of now, cocooned in warmth with a friend to keep the darkness at bay. But you’re not sure if G’raha has learned their hearthside stories, fables and examples of being good to one another. There is little posterity in the tales taught to children.

“Nothing of… nothing of war,” you manage, and startle when you feel his crystal hand come up to stroke your hair, comfort that is all the more valuable for its absentmindedness. “Tell me something about their… about how people lived their daily lives.”

The Exarch obliges. Wont as he is to answer any of your requests you can tell even through your exhaustion his pleasure at this one, at your remembrance of the magic he’d woven with his words all those years ago. His soporific voice paints you a picture of the festival of leavening, where families remade old clothes or machinery into something better. There is something of Amaurotine creativity to it: you keep the thought to yourself, but a sad smile touches your lips as you wonder whether Emet-Selch had exerted his influence just one time for good. 

“I’d like to see a festival like that,” you drowse when G’raha lapses into silence. He nods against your forehead; you had been caught up in the telling of the tale, and hadn’t noticed the miqo’te slide closer to you while he spoke. 

“I’ll make one for you,” he says, hushed, and it is the last thing you hear before you are caught up in sleep, true sleep. 

When you rest, it is with your hand clasped between his, G’raha’s lips a brand against your forehead and your body heavy with the lethargy of safety. There is no sound in the chamber but the lullaby hum of the Syrcus Tower, your twin breathing matching the entanglement of your legs as you slumber. Deep in your unconsciousness, something tells you that this is but the first nap of many to be shared. Treasured.

Blessedly, you do not dream.

**Author's Note:**

> I love this and I had to stop myself from writing 10,000 words of Exarch x WoL sleeping. Let me know what you think! I could do more? I felt like I wanted this to be a little more non-platonic so there's definitely room in me for another scene.


End file.
